Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

A century before Venus and Serena Williams dominated Wimbledon, there was another cultural and athletic tennis legend.

Her name was Suzanne Langland from France. She was known as the goddess.

In the 1920s,

Lengland was the greatest athlete and star of her time.

Bigger, some sportswriters argued, than Babe Ruth.

She was physically ferocious, always fashionable, a disruptor of convention.

For 1919 to 1926, Lengland won six times at both Wimbledon and the French Open,

where a court is named after her.

She won two Olympic gold medals.

The number of matches she lost during that period, one, still boggles

the mind. The tennis world had never seen a female player with such an aggressive style.

Langland's matches regularly sold out in advance, though not just because of her aggressive,

almost acrobatic play. She also shattered custom and precedent on the court by wearing silk tennis dresses, cut above the knee, and bearing her arms with sleeveless tops.

Total no-nows back then.

She would arrive at matches wearing bright red lipstick in a fur coat.

In between sets, she sipped cognac.

The silk chiffon-Lengland wore around her head was copied by her fans, and later, other women breaking free from custom and precedent.

Vogue featured her in a fashion spread over 90 years ago, writing that Lenglin was, quote, a paradigm of style.

She was also a piece of work.

Newspapers were constantly filled with stories about Langland's latest love interest or party sightings.

She often pleaded to play after lunchtime, not to carbload, but because she was frequently

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